


Like the Adventure of the Yellow Whatever

by donutsweeper



Category: 9-1-1: Lone Star (TV 2020)
Genre: Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-29
Updated: 2020-01-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:40:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22441951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/donutsweeper/pseuds/donutsweeper
Summary: It wasn't long before Paul developed a reputation at the 126th, but it wasn't the kind of reputation he expected.AKA a possible explanation as to why the other characters responded the way they did to Paul's actions in the beginning of S1E02.
Comments: 14
Kudos: 92
Collections: Writing Rainbow Yellow





	Like the Adventure of the Yellow Whatever

**Author's Note:**

  * For [reeby10](https://archiveofourown.org/users/reeby10/gifts).



Firefighters had a lot of downtime. There might be weeks where they were barely in the station at all, running from a fire to a car crash to some other emergency and then straight to another fire with what felt like only a break long enough to restock the truck, but most of the time? There might be a call here and there but mostly it was paperwork, training, more paperwork, and lots and lots of sitting around with nothing to do.

All of them found ways to occupy themselves. Some took the opportunity to get in some extra workouts, others baked or cooked, some liked to clean, and some to organize and/or ready the equipment. Paul, meanwhile, read. What he chose to read wasn't car magazines or sports biographies or whatever the hell it was that might be considered something typical for a firefighter to spend their time paging through; no, Paul spent his time reading mysteries. Not the hardboiled, Sam Spade type or the "cozy" amateur investigators like Jessica Fletcher or the guy from The Cat Who… books but rather he read the classics, enjoying the adventures of the likes of C. Auguste Dupin, Hercule Poirot, Nero Wolfe, and, of course, Sherlock Holmes. 

His station in Boston… well they weren’t so nice about his choice of reading material. It didn’t stop him from reading what he liked since Paul wasn't the type to give a shit what people thought, but still, it made for an unpleasant situation every once in a while. At the 126th though? Not only did no one seem to consider it atypical, but they often even asked about what he was reading and what he'd liked about the various stories. At first he thought they were only being polite but then he realized they weren't half-assing the questions, but were seriously interested in what he had to say.

Then came the day they had a weird call and he used some of the techniques he'd been reading about to help save the day. He hadn't thought it was that big a deal, he's just looked at the situation logically—if, despite their best efforts, the fire wasn't going out then something had to be feeding it—and discovered some piping that had been covered up and forgotten about a few renovations ago but was able to provide just enough extra air that their efforts to smother the fire failed.

Once he'd uncovered and blocked it off they'd been able to do their job and afterwards Captain Strand turned to him, eyebrows raised high and simply asked, "How?"

"I was thinking about what Holmes said, 'When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.' What we'd been doing should have worked, since it didn't there had to be something affecting it that we didn't know about," Paul explained.

Strand's look changed to one of respect and he nodded, offering him a quick, "Good job," before heading off to do whatever it was that captains did to keep them so busy all the time. 

A few days later Paul found himself explaining the difference between deductive and inductive reasoning to the others and how it could lead to logical yet incorrect conclusions after he determined the true culprit behind missing donuts from their favorite bakery was neither a light fingered employee nor a person breaking in after hours, but rather a very clever racoon taking advantage of the building's design.

The next week he commented on the atypical behavior of a car crash victim and said victim happened to overhear what he'd said and then confessed to not only tampering with the vehicle's brakes but also having recently embezzled several thousand dollars from their job. After that the various members of the 126th as well as the cops they worked with frequently began to look to him for answers when they came across things that were confusing or complex. 

It was exhilarating in a way, having everyone turn to him for an explanation, but also a bit frustrating because sometimes, no matter how hard he tried, he just couldn't look at the scene, examine the evidence, and figure out the problem. Strand didn't let him beat himself up about it though. "Hey, not even Sherlock Holmes himself always got everything right. Like that story you were talking about the other day, The Adventure of the Yellow… whatever it was. The one with the face in that cottage window? Holmes blew that one completely." Strand patted him on the shoulder. "I didn't hire you to come in and do a thing and tie up all our calls in a pretty bow. I hired you to be the best damn firefighter you can be and you haven't let me down on that at all. Anything else? It's gravy. Okay?"

"Yeah."

"Good. Now come on, you were in the middle of telling us about that Nero Wolfe verses the FBI case when we got called out. I want to hear how it turned out."

**Author's Note:**

> "The Adventure of the Yellow Face" is one of Holmes' few cases where his deduction during it turn out to be incorrect. The truth, eventually, does come out anyway.
> 
> In the Rex Stout novel "The Doorbell Rang," Nero Wolfe was hired to force the FBI to stop wiretapping, tailing and otherwise harassing a woman who gave away thousands of copies of a book critical of the Bureau and its director, J. Edgar Hoover. He succeeds.


End file.
